Apple

iPhone

iPad

iOS

Jailbreak

Cydia

Everyone wants a piece of the iPad, including the tablet's e-reader competitors like Amazon's Kindle.

Today, Amazon rolled out a free software package just for Mac users that will provide a portal to the online retail giant's e-book store. As a result, Kindle books are now accessible from pretty much anywhere... Blackberry, iPhone, PC, and, as of today's announcement, even a Mac. Most excitingly, however, is that Amazon's e-reader software will ultimately be compatible with the iPad.

That's right... Kindle is staking its claim in the iPad. Dubbed "Kindle for Mac," Amazon is promoting the software as a "perfect companion application" for people who own Kindles and even those who don't. Kindle for Mac will still provide access to Kindle's e-book store. The software will deliver access to a half million e-books in more than one hundred countries.

Despite earlier rumblings about the prospect of Amazon introducing such a software package, it now appears that the Kindle's big Mac arrival signals more than just an attempt by Amazon to capitalize on yet another platform to promote the Kindle. Instead, it seems that Amazon is going to firmly hunker down on iPad territory and strive to ramp up sales of new releases and old favorites from Kindle's e-book inventory.

Although updates and improvements have already been alluded to, for now, Kindle for Mac serves up the familiar Whispersync technology so that, for example, Mac users can save and synchronize bookmarks across the various devices used to access their digital content. In other words, if you opt to buy a Kindle half way through reading an e-book on your iPad, you'll never forget where you left off. It's that exact convenience that Amazon will endeavor to make patently obvious in the coming weeks and months.